Small station wagons are hardly a thriving breed in a modern age where acronyms like SUV and MPV take care of those with practical needs.
It's still a niche that Chevrolet feels fit to tackle, however, with its new Cruze station wagon that will be unveiled at the Geneva Motor Show in March.
The first official picture that you see here shows that GM has at least attempted to endow it with a sportier, more hatchback-like design that features a tapering single-arch roofline that still fits a set of roof rails.
IT'S BIG…
Measuring 4768mm in length, the wagon is 258mm longer than its hatchback sibling and 81mm longer than the sedan.
In practical terms, this translates into 500 litres worth of load space up to the window line in the boot, which can be expanded to almost 1500 litres up to the roof if the rear seats are folded.
BUT NOT ALL BULK
It's not all about bulk, however, with a new 97kW 1.7-litre turbodiesel engine, mated to an idle-stop system, allowing an official CO2 figure of just 119g/km - which would be just enough to put it on the good side of South Africa's emissions tax to put that into perspective.
Not that there is much chance of seeing it here any time soon. Our contact at GMSA said there are no plans to bring the station wagon to South Africa at this stage.
MINOR FACELIFT
One thing we will inevitably see, however, is a number of small styling changes to the Cruze, which include a redesigned front bumper, modified headlight innards and new wheel designs on the outside and a few minor trim changes inside.